ASIC Design Engineering Lead - SoC IP DMA

Apple Inc.; Sunnyvale (CA); On-site; USD 216,000 - 394,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive medical and dental

Retirement benefits

Employee stock programs

Tuition reimbursement

Bonuses or commission

Relocation

Job summary

Apple Inc. in Sunnyvale is seeking an experienced ASIC Design Engineering Lead to head a team central to the SoC IP DMA design effort.

The role blends people management with strong technical leadership across micro-architecture, RTL delivery, and debug to ensure silicon-ready quality. You will guide architectural decisions, mentor engineers, and drive automation and AI-enabled tooling while coordinating with architecture, IP integration, and verification teams.

Qualifications

• Experience in technical leadership: accountable for multi-person deliverables and setting technical direction.
• Hands-on leadership with communication across management and partners.
• Excellent project planning and execution: bottom-up scheduling and resource management.
• Solid understanding of SoC architecture and high-performance designs.

Responsibilities

• Lead a team through micro-architecture, RTL delivery, and debug.
• Provide high-level technical guidance and drive design decisions.
• Develop design infrastructure, automation, and AI-enabled workflows.
• Scope features, estimate effort, and create project schedules and resources.
• Mentor engineers and foster a collaborative, growth-oriented culture.

Skills

Front-end ASIC design

Technical leadership

People management

Communication skills

Project planning

SoC architecture

AI/ML compute

High-frequency design

Education

Bachelor's degree in EE or related field

Job description

ASIC Design Engineering Lead - SoC IP DMA

In this highly visible, hands-on role, you will lead a team of engineers at the center of Apple's SOC IP DMA design effort. Balancing equal parts people management and technical leadership, you will guide your team through the full front-end design cycle, including microarchitecture, RTL delivery, and debug. Your leadership will ensure silicon-ready quality while fostering a culture of teamwork and collaboration, continuous learning, and engineering excellence. Your work will have direct impact on products used by millions of people worldwide.

Description

• Work closely with the platform architecture team to understand and refine architectural requirements
• Lead your team to define and document the micro-architecture
• Provide high-level technical guidance, drive micro-architectural decisions, review team members’ work and provide feedback, and ensure quality and across the team's design work
• Actively drive the development of design infrastructure, automation, and strategic use of AI and other emerging tools
• Be hands-on with the all activities of the team, e.g. micro-architecture, RTL design, verification strategy, debug, and infrastructure development
• Scope features, generate effort, area, and power estimates, and create bottoms-up project schedules and resourcing plans.
• Partner with architecture, IP integration, chip integration, design verification, and formal verification teams to align on plans, milestones, and deliverables
• Track execution, surface and resolve risks early, and communicate clearly to management and stakeholders
• Lead, mentor, and grow a team of engineers; actively invest in each person's technical and professional development
• Build a team culture grounded in teamwork and collaboration, intellectual honesty, design/idea sharing, and a genuine growth mindset
• Manage interpersonal dynamics thoughtfully and cultivate strong relationships within the team and with cross-functional teams

Minimum Qualifications

• BS and a minimum of 20 years relevant industry experience

Preferred Qualifications

• 10+ years of hands-on experience in front-end ASIC design
• Experience in technical leadership: accountable for multi-person deliverables, setting technical direction, and interfacing effectively with management and cross-functional partners.
• Experience managing people on a team strongly desired
• Outstanding written and verbal communication skills and cross-functional collaboration instincts
• Excellent project planning and execution skills: bottom-up scheduling, effort, area, and power estimation, milestone planning and execution, and resource management
• Solid understanding of SoC architecture and high performance designs particularly for high speed networking, AI/ML compute, image and video processing, and/or memory subsystems
• Understanding of design concepts including arbitration, flow control, address translation, caching, bandwidth, pipelining, real time quality-of-service, and AMBA protocols, (AXI, APB, etc.).
• Understanding of low-power design techniques including clock gating, power gating, and logic depth; Understanding of timing optimization and high-frequency design
• Track record of driving innovation through building tools, infrastructure, and automation, and strategic use of emerging technologies including AI.

Compensation and Benefits

In this role you will earn a base pay in the range $216,200 to $394,000, depending on skills, qualifications, experience, and location.

Apple employees also have the opportunity to become an Apple shareholder through participation in Apple’s discretionary employee stock programs. Apple employees are eligible for discretionary restricted stock unit awards, and can purchase Apple stock at a discount if voluntarily participating in Apple’s Employee Stock Purchase Plan.

Note: Apple benefit, compensation and employee stock programs are subject to eligibility requirements and other terms of the applicable plan or program.

• Comprehensive medical and dental coverage
• retirement benefits
• a range of discounted products and free services
• reimbursement for certain educational expenses — including tuition
• discretionary bonuses or commission payments
• relocation

Learn more about Apple Benefits

Apple accepts applications to this posting on an ongoing basis.

Apple is an equal opportunity employer that is committed to inclusion and diversity. We seek to promote equal opportunity for all applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, Veteran status, or other legally protected characteristics. Learn more about your EEO rights as an applicant

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